Posts Tagged ‘water’

…the study showed that the fish in the San Mateo County lake – which collects rainwater as well as water piped in from Yosemite’s Hetch Hetchy reservoir – had some of the highest mercury levels in the state.

I have the feeling that there would be a lot of unwelcome surprises in store, were we to perform a comprehensive toxin assay survey across our “pristine” water sources here in the US. Anyone think that’s likely to happen?

Like a lot of people I watched the premier of the stunning documentary Gasland the other night. While the ugliness of hydraulic fracturing was not entirely unknown to me, the scale of the current practice, as well as the manic increasing rate HF-based NG drilling was shocking.

According to the excellent investigative journalism organization ProPublica, 2008 saw 52,616 new HF-NG wells drilled in the US. Yes, 52616new wells. The previous year saw 49220 new wells drilled, 47984 in 2006 and, well you get the picture.

Tens of thousands of fresh wells drilled every year. Tens of thousands.

For 2008 (ProPublica’s most recent data) that means about 144 new wells drilled each day in the US, or about 2.8 per day for each of the 50 states.

And for those water consumers out there (you know who you are), consider these tasty little data nuggets:

…as much as 85 percent of the fluids used during hydraulic fracturing is being left underground after wells are drilled…

That means that for each modern gas well drilled in the Marcellus and places like it, more than 3 million gallons of chemically tainted wastewater could be left in the ground forever.